The Wallace-Darwin Correspondence 



man's almost perfect stability of form during all historical 

 epochs. 



It has given me a settled opinion on these subjects, if 

 nobody can show a fallacy in the argument. 



The Anthropologicals did not seem to appreciate it much, 

 but we had a long discussion which appears almost verbatim 

 in the Anthropological Review,^ 



As the Linnean Transactions will not be out till the end 

 of the year I sent a pretty full abstract of the more interest- 

 ing parts of my Papilionidae paper ^ to the Reader, which, as 

 you say, is a splendid paper. 



Trusting Mrs. Darwin and all your family are well, and 

 that you are improving, believe me yours most sincerely, 



Alfred E. Wallace. 

 Down, Bromley, Kent, May 28, 1864. 



Dear Wallace, — I am so much better that I have just 

 finished a paper for the Linnean Society; but as I am not 

 yet at all strong I felt miich disinclination to write, and 

 therefore you must forgive me for not having sooner 

 thanked you for your paper on Man received on the 11th. 

 But first let me say that I have hardly ever in my life been 

 more struck by any paper than that on variation, etc. 

 etc., in the Reader, I feel sure that such papers will do 

 more for the spreading of our views on the modification of 

 species than any separate treatises on the single subject 

 itself. It is really admirable; but you ought not in the 

 JIan paper to speak of the theory as mine ; it is just as much 

 yours as mine. One correspondent has already noticed to 

 me your ^' high-minded " conduct on this head. 



1 For March, 1864. 



* Reader, April 16, 1864. An abstract of Wallace's paper " On the Phenomena 

 of Variation and Geographical Distribution, as illustrated by the Papilionidse 

 of the Malayan Region," Linn. Soc. Trans., xxv. 



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